Joiners in Worksop

Two Article 4 directions in the whole district, and one of them is here

Bassetlaw District Council has 34 conservation areas. Worksop itself is one, and so are Mr Straw's, Old Gateford, Sunnyside, Shireoaks and Norton, all in or around the town. Despite that number, the council has only two Article 4(1) directions covering conservation areas anywhere in the district. One is White Hart House at Gringley on the Hill. The other is Mr Straw's, here in Worksop, designated as a conservation area on 25 May 2011.

Mr Straw's House at 5 to 7 Blyth Grove is an Edwardian semi-detached pair built in 1905. The Straw family moved in during 1923 and changed almost nothing; the National Trust took it on and opened it to visitors in 1993. Around that one preserved pair of houses sits half of Bassetlaw's entire conservation-area Article 4 provision.

What the council says is most at risk

Bassetlaw sets out in its own published material what its conservation-area Article 4 directions are there to protect. Windows and doors come first, described as the features "most vulnerable to such change". Then boundary walls, fences, railings and gates, rainwater goods, roof materials, chimneys, and joinery and ironwork such as bargeboards, finials and brackets.

That is the council's own position on the fabric, not our opinion. What it does not do is tell you your particular house is unrestricted. Nobody has read the Mr Straw's schedule end to end, so even inside that boundary the precise list of withdrawn rights has to be confirmed. Anywhere else in the town, a listed building, a flat or maisonette, or a building that is not a dwellinghouse brings its own consent requirements regardless of Article 4. Rules run street by street and property by property. Put your address to Bassetlaw's conservation officer, get it in writing, and only then start ordering timber.

From 748 people to 16,455

The building stock follows the growth curve, and this one is steep. About 748 residents in 1674, when it was the fourth largest settlement in Nottinghamshire. Roughly 1,500 by 1743, 3,391 in 1801, and 16,455 by 1901. That nineteenth century increase is where most of the terraces came from.

What drove it was the Chesterfield Canal in 1777, then the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway in 1849, then coal. By 1900 mining dominated local employment, through Shireoaks Colliery and Manton Colliery, and the pits closed in the 1990s. Behind all that, the Enclosure Map of 1817 shows three separate clusters, at Bridge Street and Potter Street, at the Priory and Radford, and at the canal and Bridge Place, which is the grain the conservation area still follows.

From those eras, expect timber horned sashes on the Victorian belt around Bridge Street and Potter Street and on the colliery terraces, sashes and casements on the 1900s semi-detached stock of which Mr Straw's is the textbook survivor, and 1930s casements with leaded lights on the interwar layer. Reasoning from building age rather than a survey, but it is what turns up on the bench. All of it is replicable: bespoke timber windows and timber doors cut to the section you already have, plus handmade kitchens, fitted wardrobes and staircases and balustrades indoors.

The Priory Gatehouse

The Priory gatehouse on Cheapside has been Grade I listed since 27 September 1951. Early fourteenth century, with a slightly later south porch containing what is believed to be the only surviving English medieval walk-through shrine. Irregularly coursed ashlar and rubble, pantile roofs, two storeys, three bays, restored in 1814, 1891, between 1909 and 1912, in 1959 and again in 1974. Behind it lies the Dukeries, the ducal cluster of Clumber, Thoresby, Welbeck Abbey and Worksop Manor that the town is the gateway to.

One more direction, for landlords

Separately from anything to do with fabric, the Worksop Central Area carries a change-of-use Article 4(1) direction, made on 5 December 2019 and confirmed on 3 June 2020, removing the right to convert a family dwelling to a small house in multiple occupation. It has nothing to do with windows or doors, but it matters if you are buying to let and planning commercial joinery on the back of it.

Down the A60

We are about 17 to 18 miles south, roughly 30 to 35 minutes on the A60. Approximate rather than measured, but it is one road most of the way.

Made on our own benches

Tez Cudworth has run this workshop since 2004 and it is still where everything is produced. City & Guilds qualified, no bought-in units wearing our label. Our Accoya licence lets us build in timber warranted for fifty years above ground. Tina keeps you updated, and WhatsApp photographs arrive at each stage rather than a fitting date and silence in between.

Phone 01623 530838 with the address and the age of the property. If Bassetlaw needs to see it first, we would rather you found that out from us early than from an enforcement letter later.